


and it was familiar until the stars fell

by WonderTwinC



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-15
Updated: 2012-08-15
Packaged: 2017-11-12 04:32:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/486728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderTwinC/pseuds/WonderTwinC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s asked her out once every year for as long as he can remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and it was familiar until the stars fell

**Author's Note:**

> So I haven’t been able to write anything for a week or two and then Marchie mentioned her love of Red Cricket earlier, and in an attempt to please her with graphics, I also got horribly inspired to write and so my first Red Cricket ficlet was born. This is nothing spectacular but it’s what I have. Forgive any mistakes.

He’s asked her out once every year for as long as he can remember. It’s always on the same day, two weeks before Christmas, when the cold is more than just nipping at their noses. She enjoys the weather, a chance to wear fur lined boots and the puffy red jacket that she owns. The diner is not a place he frequents, not often, but he makes the exception for her and only her, when his chest is warm from more than just the feelings he keeps locked there. Scotch is involved, it always is, but he keeps his head held high and a smile in place as she serves him (it’s always coffee and red velvet cake, reminders of _her_ ).

 

It feels like an endless cycle. A dance he can’t quite grasp, one he almost wants to change but isn’t able to. Year after year is a repeat of the same events. Scotch in his office, the blistering cold trek across town to a booth in the back, her soft laughter and her red, gentle smile. She always touches him in the same places too, a hand on his shoulder while she takes his order and later, just as he’s about to leave she’ll stop him to fix his glasses, her warm and surprisingly rough fingertips brushing just below his temples and ghosting against his nose.

 

 

They never speak beyond the booth.

 

It’s both a curse and a blessing because he has no more words left and she comes through so much better with her actions, the smiles and laughs and the way her eyes glint and sparkle. Sometimes he thinks he’d like to touch her back, but there’s not enough scotch in his system or bravery in his heart. He’d like her to sit with him he thinks, after she’s brought back his order, but he can’t get the words out and the door chimes open, admitting a grouchy Mr. Gold who snaps for his coffee while yanking on his gloves to pull them off.

 

He doodles after that, sketching roughly onto a napkin with shaking hands and maybe that’s the same too, but he doesn’t really remember. All he knows is she picks it up and squints, teasing him before she places a red kiss in the corner and sets it back down. His face feels hot after that but he can’t stop smiling, even though he knows the last step of the dance is coming.

 

It’s the moment when he fumbles, stepping on her toes, holding her maybe a little too lightly when he doesn’t really have a grip on her at all. His words fall out, tripping over each other in their haste to be said and the light in her eyes goes out like a super nova and she smiles, but it’s sad and apologetic as she offers him more coffee in place of an answer. Each time there is hesitation in his acceptance, but once more cup leads to three and then he’s sober.

 

Gold is long gone by now, having left the same way he entered, grouchy and interrupting what could have been a moment, but it’s late and the diner is closing soon and so he gets up. She doesn’t refrain from touching him. She’s too bold for that. He leaves with a bare smile and cold feet as she shuts the door behind him and turns the sign to closed, reflecting more than just the state of the store.

 

This is all he can remember of her, the only true thing he has, for the other memories feel stressed and fake at the seams. Too bright around the edges or too dim at the center, never entirely balanced either one way or the other.

 

Then the curse breaks.

 

It’s not anywhere near Christmas, just barely cool and no snow, but he goes to the diner anyways. She’s there, sitting at the counter with her hair down and no jacket, her shoes boots without the fur lining, but her smile is just the same, just as bright and ‘come catch me’ as ever.

 

He can’t ever remember saying her name before, but it falls from his lips, tasting bittersweet in his mouth as he wraps his tongue around the syllables, “Ruby?”

 

The moment feels right and this is their truth. Every other time he’s asked has been a curse and just this once, this one time out of many, he prays for it to be a blessing. He knows her, has known her for years as Jiminy and loved her for most of them, loved her as he loves her now, maybe more, but he knows her answer when the bright of her eyes goes out like a flaring, dying sun.

 

What he doesn’t know is that in a box under her bed she has twenty eight sketches of a wolf and a moon. Each is a reason she does not go with him but every single one she has left her mark upon, a single kiss to be remembered by.


End file.
